Saving Race
by elmthesmartypants
Summary: When an unsub begins grabbing and murdering young women and disposing of their bodies within a day, the BAU is called in to investigate. Now they must find the latest victim, who has been missing for about nine hours and has very little time left.
1. Chapter 1

Hey people.

Wow I haven't written a story on this site in so long. I actually look back at my old stories and realise just how young I was when I wrote those (I'm 18 now, but I probably started writing them when I was about 12 or 13.)

So this is my first Criminal Mind FF. Hope you guys like it. I am not a psych or criminology major, all I know about profiling is what I see in the show. So if what I write doesn't really fit the unsub I'm describing, then please correct me.  
It's not extremely long I know, but I'm hopin to update as regularly as possible.

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of it's characters.  
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Quantico, Virginia

"Okay, what do we have?" SSA Derek Morgan asked as he entered the BAU conference room, clutching desperately to his cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry to make everyone come in so early, but JJ and I thought it was necessary," Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner apologised to the rest of his team as they took their seats.

"What's going on?" asked Penelope Garcia, the team's technical analyst.

Jennifer "JJ" Jareau flicked a power point remote, and the image of three young women filled the screen, alongside the picture of three corpses. "These three victims were grabbed right off Georgetown's campus within the past two weeks. All the victims were found dead within twenty four hours of being taken. There was evidence of sexual assault."

"Well they certainly fit a type," Emily Prentiss remarked. "All have long, red hair, freckles, green eyes, very pale. And they're all... well remarkably beautiful; they'd stand out in a crowd."

"And they're all 24 to 26 years old. All slim, and about the same height, the shortest girl was five foot eight, tallest was five foot nine and a half," Hotchner added.

"So he's projecting the image of someone he knows onto these girls. What was the cause of death?" David Rossi questioned.

"Each victim had a single stab wound to the stomach, and he slit their wrists, ultimately the COD was blood loss," JJ said as she flipped to three new images, a close up of the three girls' wrists.

Spencer Reid limped closer to the screen, peering at the images, "Based on the depth and width of the cut, it would have taken about 45 minutes for them to die, but combined with the blood loss from the stomach wound, I'd say it was only about 30 minutes."

"30 minutes of pure agony, knowing you're about to die," Emily remarked.

"So what do we know about this guy?" Morgan asked.

"DNA was left on the bodies of all three victims, but when they ran it no matches, so he doesn't have a record. All the bodies were found in empty parking lots within ten blocks of each other, about fifty miles away from the campus. It is most definitely a dump site, he hurt them at a different location, waited for most of the blood to drain, and then left them there barely alive," JJ summarized.

"So he overpowers them on campus, takes them to another location, and rapes them. Then he stabs them once, slits their wrists, and dumps them in a parking lot," Morgan summarized. "Looks like we're dealing with a sexual sadist."

"Guys, there is more. Last night Lee Elizabeth Byrne left her house to go for a walk. Now Lee doesn't live on campus, but her normal route would take her very close to it. She left around 5 pm last night, and she never came back. A friend who was staying with her arrived home at about six, realised something was wrong when she wasn't back by ten, and called the police. JJ flipped yet another picture. "This is a picture of Lee from about 3 weeks ago,"

"But... but she looks nothing like the other three victims," Prentiss stumbled over her words.

The picture on the screen was originally of a group of people with their arms around each other, but it had cropped to focus just on Lee. Lee Elizabeth was a relatively pretty girl, about five foot four, and curvy. She had brown hair and blue eyes, and though her skin was light, she wasn't nearly as pale as the other three victims.

"This girl doesn't fit the type at all, how do we know she was taken by the same guy," Morgan asked.

"A small amount of her blood was found about five blocks away from her home, as well as blood with DNA matching our unsub."

"So we have a preferential sexual sadist, who suddenly changes his victim type?" Rossi asked, completely bewildered.

"So either there is something special about Lee, or he no longer has the patience to wait for the victim he is attracted to, the urge has gotten so strong he will take any easy target," Hotchner sounded morose.

"Either way we're running out of time," Reid urged. "She was taken about nine hours ago, and he keeps his victims for only 24 hours. With this sudden change in victim type, that time may be shorter."

"Garcia, I want you to look up these girls. Try and find anything that connects Lee to the original victims, and anything else that connects the first three girls with each other besides appearance," Hotchner ordered.

Garcia was out of her chair and out the door as fast as possible.

"I want everyone else in a truck in fifteen minutes. We're going to Washington."

Immediately the team was moving.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!

I'd like to thank the Georgetown official website and Wikipedia, the sites where I gathered the information used in this chapter.

Thank you Mogo Girl for your review! I forgot to say it in chapter 1, but I think it goes without saying that I, just like everyone else, love reviews.

And so here we go:

* * *

JJ tapped her fingers impatiently on the passenger dashboard as Hotch slowed for the oncoming red light.

"Are you getting anything from those files Reid?" Hotch asked the young genius, who was poring over the information that the DC police had sent over.

"The victims had set daily patterns. They walked the same route, went to the gym at the same time, and consistently went to class. The three original victims were all in graduate school, but Lee is still a third year undergrad."

"How old is Lee?" Hotch asked.

"Twenty," Reid and JJ replied at the same time.

"What were they studying?" Prentiss' voice piped up from JJ's cell, which they had set to speakerphone.

"The first victim, Amber Kelly, was in Catholic Studies. Second victim, Chelsea Winters, was in Political science. Third, Holly Lindburg, was in the school of medicine. Lee is in Literary Studies."

"Well I suppose we can rule out their majors as part of the profiles," Morgan muttered sarcastically over the phone. "That only leaves us with a couple thousand potential suspects and victims at Georgetown alone?"

"Well actually Georgetown's population isn't that large in comparison to other post-secondary institutions. For the class of 2,012 only 3,371 students were admitted, that's roughly about 18% of all that applied. Then of course there is the faculty, which adds up to about 1,957 staff members over the three campuses, that is, of course, if you include both full and part time...," Reid recited, barely stopping for breath.

"Not the time Reid," Hotch interrupted.

"Right... sorry," Reid mumbled.

"Focus on the maps Reid, see if you can find out where his comfort zone is. We need to figure out where he may leave Lee."

"What else do we need to know JJ?" Prentiss asked.

"The girls all left their homes, alone, with their cell phones between the hours of 5:30 and 10:30. Amber Kelly was grocery shopping, her purchases were found dumped in a garbage bin. Chelsea Winters was going to the gym. Holly Lindburg was heading home after a late class."

"You said something about their cell phones?" Rossi prodded.

"Yes. It took several hours for anyone to notice the girls were missing because their friends received text messages from them, explaining their absence. The friends started realising something was wrong when the style of text message changed, it just didn't sound like their friends anymore."

"Did any of Lee's friends get text messages?" Reid's voice piped from the back seat.

"I'm not sure."

"Okay Morgan, Prentiss, and Rossi I want you two to head directly to the spot where they found Lee's blood, there should be cops working the scene already. The rest of us are going to head to the station."

"We're on our way," Morgan stated before the call disconnected.

"Based on what I see in this map, I think the UnSub may choose one of 3 parking lots around the same area."

"That was quick."

"This UnSub seems rather simple. The fact that he left his DNA at all the scenes and always visits the same basic area, he's disorganised. He's acting on an impulse and familiarity, there is no planning."

"Well that should make it easier for us to find him then."

"It also makes him more dangerous."

"Okay as soon as possible we'll have teams canvassing the parking lots and surrounding area."

* * *

Georgetown University, Washington DC

Prentiss held a flashlight as she, Morgan, and Rossi stared down at the blood splatters on the ground.

"I'm guessing from the amount of blood on the ground here, this guy hit her in the face to subdue her, and then threw her in his vehicle."

"And she fought back," a local officer said as he joined the three BAU members. This officer also carried a flashlight, and he offered two more to Rossi and Morgan. "This guy lost a decent bit of blood, I'd say she really did a number on his face, possibly even broken his nose."

The officer offered his hand to Morgan, "I'm Lt. Darren Prague."

"SSA Derek Morgan, this is David Rossi, and Emily Prentiss."

"Is this your entire team?"

"No our Unit Chief, Aaron Hotchner, and two other agents are heading to the police station to meet with Detective Barnes."

"You've worked with Detective Barnes before?"

"We worked together to arrest Ronald Weems," Morgan answered.

"Is there anything else that this scene tells us?" Rossi asked.

"There doesn't appear to be. We don't have any witnesses really, but see that apartment building?"

"Yeah."

"That's a Georgetown residence, the first victim, Amber Kelly lived there. A few students reported having heard something around the time Lee Byrne disappeared. They didn't think anything of it... figured it was just some other students celebrating the weekend."

Rossi glanced at his watch, "Four am. It's already been two hours since we left Quantico, which makes it eleven or so hours since she's disappeared. We don't have time to just stand around, we need to do something."

"I'll call Hotchner, see if they've got anything," Prentiss offered, pulling out her cell phone.

* * *

DC Police Station

Reid pored over a map of Washington, colour coding possible comfort zones that the UnSub might stick to.

"Dr. Reid," Detective Barnes was standing over him with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. "If we were under different circumstances I'd say it's nice to see you again."

"I appreciate the sentiment anyhow detective," Reid replied.

"Here," Detective Barnes gently placed the coffee mug in front of Reid, carefully avoiding the map. He also placed several packets of milk and sugar next to the mug. "We really appreciate you guys coming in so early."

"Well anything we can do to help this girl," Reid responded with complete truthfulness.

Detective Barnes nodded, and clapped Reid on the shoulder before heading over to offer JJ help with putting the white board of evidence together.

"Reid," Hotch called. "I have Prentiss on the phone, did you get any more from that map?"

"This UnSub is obviously comfortable near the Georgetown campus. But the comfort zone where he drops the girls is in a completely different area. I'd have to say he lives in the one zone, and maybe works closer to campus."

"Any thoughts on possible sites to hide the bodies?"

"I said three parking lots originally, but now, I'm going to say five. I have them all written here," Reid handed Hotch a piece of paper.

"Okay Prentiss we have five possible sites that he may go to bring Lee. I want every site to be canvassed with several officers, and each site is going to have at least one BAU member on the team, we may have to get inside this guy's head if we get there on time."

Hotch waited for a few moments before muttering a goodbye to Prentiss and hanging up the phone. "Detective Barnes," Hotch waved over the officer. After a few moments of hushed conversation, the Detective turned to the rest of the men in the station and gave a loud whistle.

"Okay everyone listen up. I need the officers to divide up into five groups. Each group is going to be on location at the parking lots we believe the UnSub may go to. Each group will have a BAU member who will be there should we need to negotiate with the UnSub in order to save the girls life. Agents Rossi, Prentiss and Morgan are already heading over to their designated parking lots, Agent Hotchner and Dr. Reid will accompany two groups to their locations. Each group should have someone trained in First Aid. Once you get to the parking lot, if you don't see anything suspicious, try to hide, blend in. If the UnSub comes there we don't want to scare him off, he shouldn't notice you. Thank you officers, and good luck."

The officers, who had been listening attentively, quickly began scrambling to get ready to go.

"I'm going to be joining one of the groups," Detective Barnes said to Hotch. "I need to be doing something about this."

"I wouldn't expect anything else," Hotch replied. Barnes and Hotch clasped hands briefly before the Detective went to his office to grab his things.

"JJ, stay here and wait on Garcia, hopefully she'll dig up some information on the victims. And tell her to run a search on any unsolved crimes in the area that could relate to this. Just because this guy's DNA isn't on file doesn't mean he hasn't done something in the past."

JJ nodded wearily, her eyes were half closed as she looked back at the evidence board. Reid wondered if it was her fatigue, or the tragedy of these murders that made her eyes look so absent.

"Reid, you ready for this?" Hotch asked the young agent. "Is your leg bothering you at all?"

"Hotch I'm fine, I've been able to walk without a cane for six months now. I can do this."

Hotch's eyes held an uncertainty, but he trusted the younger man to know what he was doing. "Okay, let's go."

* * *

Well that took a little longer to write than the first chapter, but I hope you guys like it.

Reviews and suggestions are appreciated.


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